I am YuYan
by Lee Pyro
Summary: There are two sides to every war. This story gives reference to my fascination with the Yu-Yan archers and my desire to see the other side of the war that raged for 100 years since the disappearance of the Avatar. Rated for violence.
1. Family

_My name is Sheng  
_

* * *

I was born in the colonies. My mother's name was Sen. My father's name was Kei, he was a carpenter. I had an older sister named Xia. I was second, the first son.

I always loved to shoot. My father made me my first bow when I was only four summers of age. It was a crude thing but I loved it and practiced so that by the time I was five I could shoot a trap a fly from a hundred meters.

It was at that time that the soldier man Shinu came through our village. He told my parents that I had the type of talent they were looking for to join their elite archers. I wasn't meant to hear but Xia told me later.

Mother was flattered, Father was proud of his son. He told me as much when he found out I knew. I was to young though and soldier Shinu left our village a few days later taking a number of older boys to train as soldiers. I went back to my games and my lessons, Mother and Xia continued to work around the house, and Father kept making things.

I used to stand by my father's workbench and help him, I would stand still as a deer in the woods and hold nails for him. Sometimes he let me build things with him, I was strong enough from using my bow to pound the nails but I wasn't a builder like him.

Sometimes Xia would come and tell me stories while we worked. We always loved the stories of Avatar Roku, though we weren't supposed to know about him, he always seemed so wise and powerful.

* * *

___  
I am alone.  
_

A few months after soldier Shinu left us the Earthbenders found our village. They attacked in the night. I awoke to my mother's screams. Xia found me.

There was a soldier in our house he had my mother by her hair, my father kneeling at his feet begging him not to harm her. The soldier took his war hammer and slammed it into my father's head. I heard a loud crack my father stared into my eyes as blood began trickling down onto his face. My mother screamed.

Xia grabbed my hand and we ran. My mother's tea set, the one she got from her mother, who had in turn inherited it from her mother, lay on the floor shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. It's painted red designs blending in with the dirt floor beneath it.

We ran through the streets. Houses were being swallowed up by the earth itself. Earthbender soldiers ran through the streets killing all in their path. Blood ran bright red in the gutters.

My friend Yi, born the same summer as me, lay outside her house a red well of blood soaking through her pretty yellow dress as a man pulled his sword out of her stomach. As the few firebenders who tried to defend us were killed their fires became uncontrolled and raged through the streets unchecked.

I was hot and sweaty, smoke burned my eyes and filled my lungs making me cough. Xia, being a firebender tried to protect us by walking into a fire and creating a sphere around us but she was young and untrained and when the fire went out we were surrounded by soldiers.

Xia's hand was yanked away from mine and as I turned and ran away I heard the soldier spit out that he was going to make the little firebending bitch beg for mercy. He would have his revenge for the crimes of our people. Xia cried out and began to sob for mother.

I hid in the outhouse. The stink of dung from the pit wafted up to my nose mixing with the scent of charred wood, dust and blood. I sat for hours, it slowly grew quieter and quieter.

When the sun finally shone through the cracks in the boards I climbed out and once again began to walk through the streets. There was no movement. A cold wind blew dust through the stillnes. The dead lined the streets.

I returned to my house, calling out for my mother. No one answered. I checked her room, there was no one there. I went to our small kitchen, there was my father's body, bloody and stinking. My mother lay next to him with a jagged line across her throat where a dagger had cut it. I puked in the cooking pot.

Xia was a few yards away from the well, her face was covered in blue patches and her clothes were ripped to shreds. She was covered in her own blood. I tried to puke again but nothing came. I covered her with mother's favorite table cloth.

Mother didn't care anymore if I used it.

* * *

___  
I am strong.  
_

After the massacre of my home I took what belongings I had, my bow, and what food I could carry and set off to find soldier Shinu. I was hungry. I begged, I borrowed, I stole. Other than to say I sought Shinu, I didn't say a word.

A few people took pity on me, took me in and fed me but always, I moved on. With a bow of thanks I left behind old women who felt sorry for the poor little tike all alone. With a glance of fury I parted with men who thought that I owed them my service because they gave me a bite to eat. But always I kept going.

I found the Fire Nation soldiers on the border of the desert. When I told them I sought soldier Shinu they asked what such a little fellow wanted with him.

A man flipped a coin and before it fell back into his palm I put an arrow through it. It lodged in a tree a few meters ahead. The man whose coin I had shot swore at me and retrieved it from the tree. A few muttered "Freak" and spat at the ground. One merely looked at me.

He introduced himself as Captain Tai Yang. He gave me food and put me on a ship to the Fire Nation with a note that he said would tell the port master to take me to Colonel Shinu. I put my hand over my fist, bowed my thanks and continued my journey.

I reached Colonel Shinu on my seventh birthday. I told him the slaughter of my home and my request to serve my nation as an archer. He brought me to the Yu-Yan.

There was big brother Wei, Xing-Xing & Ye the twins, and Xi-Wang our sister. We trained together. Everyday, rain or shine we were out with our bows. I learnt the longbow, we practiced moving quickly and quietly. We learned to climb tall, tall trees and leap across blood-chilling distances from tree to tree.

We took our meals together. We slept in the same room. I crawled in with Xing-Xing & Ye when I woke in the night silently screaming for my mother. Xi-Wang held my hand when I finally broke and sobbed my grief out at the sight of a shattered teacup. Wei drilled me in the longbow until I could shoot it as well as any of the others despite it being nearly as tall as I myself was.

I was twelve when we had our first assignment. It went smoothly, no one was hurt. The target was eliminated and one of my neighbors rested in peace. Wei fights for his father, Xi-Wang fights for civilization, Xing-Xing & Ye fight for our Nation, but I fight for my family. We all of us have the eyes of Gryphons, the patience of Lionturtles, and the speed of an ostrichlepoard. But only I have the endurance that comes from unwavering purpose.

_____I am Yu-Yan.  
_

* * *

___**  
**_**A/N: I have a deep love of the Yu-Yan archers and a unique view of them that I've been trying for weeks to pull into story format. This poor thing is the result, it's also my first real attempt at a "serious fic." As such constructive criticism is very much desired but please leave your comments regardless of whether you liked it or not. More may follow depending on my muse. Cyber cookies to all reviewers. Thank-you for reading.**___**  
**_


	2. Civilization

_My name is Xi-Wang._

Ever since I was a child I was a skilled archer. Even as a youngster I would hunt beaver-rabbits and turtle-ducks for my mother. My mother was a washer-woman in a small town on the border of the colonies. She had long brown hair and the most beautiful golden eyes. She used to call me little eagle eyes.

On my sixth birthday my mother gave me a long-bow. It was truly a work of art. It was polished smooth with a place four your hand that was just my size. She had saved for months to buy it for me. She even sold her pretty red dress. I used it so often that she said she oft forgot that it wasn't a part of my body.

Many former Earth Kingdom now Fire Nation people from the colonies used to pass through our town. They were dirty, uneducated, with barely a penny to their names. At the age of ten I opened a little school to teach their poor children at least how to read before they moved on to other towns and better schools. A few I also tutored in the art of the long-bow.

My father was a soldier, at least that's what my mother told me, I never met him. Mother used to say that I get my amber colored eagle-eyes from him. As long as I can remember I've wanted to serve my nation like he did, to bring order and civilization to the sweltering masses of the world.

* * *

_My name means hope._

* * *

When I was fourteen an epidemic, brought by one of the new citizens, raged through the town. My mother, kind soul that she was, volunteered at an aid station. She cleaned and brought food to the victims. She would come home and tell me all about them. There was a young boy named Fai in particular, who held her interest. He was traveling alone with his father looking for a new and better life as a Fire Nation citizen. His father had fallen ill and Fai was there everyday helping to take care of him.

After four weeks my mother also fell ill. I would sit by her bed and tell her the stories of Fire Lord Sozin that she told me when I was only a toddler. Fai came and sat beside me, his father had died a few days before. He told me that she was all the family he had left, the one person who had shown him kindness. He to took his turn to tell her stories, this time Earth Kingdom stories, for they were all he knew. The stories of Avatar Kioshi and the peace she brought to the Earth Kingdom were my favorites.

But there was no doctor and my mother was soon so ill that there was nothing anyone could do. I held her hand as she slipped away slowly struggling to breathe. Her breaths became weaker and weaker, her face turned ashen. She lived for three weeks after she fell ill and then she moved on to the spirit world.

At her funeral I flew the flag of our great Fire Nation, in honor of my father. The ashes of her mortal shell, I scattered over the ocean. She had always wanted to see the world. Fai boarded a ship to the islands, still hoping to start a new life.

I moved in with my aunt in the capital. It was a decent enough life. She was a noblewoman of low enough stature but enough so that we lived in comfort. I had the opportunity to practice my skills with the longbow with a contingent of soldiers attached to the palace. They taught me how to use a bow in close quarters and I taught them how to shoot accurately from a distance. Never had I had such companionship as with those soldiers.

It was there that I first met Colonel Shinu. He was trying to obtain permission from the Fire Lord to search the Nation and assemble an elite group of archers. He had heard of my skill with the bow from the palace guards. When our gracious leader granted him his request I was the first to be recruited.

* * *

___With my feet, the march of civilization continues._

* * *

The first of my new brothers and sisters to arrive was Wei. Together we taught each other all we knew of the art of archery. Often other soldiers on the base would ridicule us for our age and size but that didn't matter to us. Together we learned to overcome the disadvantage of age. We became the bust soldiers the base had ever seen. If a soldier mocked us the next day he would find his money purse fifty feet up the outer wall with a black-fletched red-ringed arrow through it.

The next to arrive were Xing-Xing & Ye. They were identical twins. So alike that it was nearly impossible to tell them apart. After awhile Wei and I both learned how but we never needed to. They were always together; they were truly two parts of the same whole. They too brought something new for us to learn and another part of our family was completed.

Sheng was the last of us to arrive. He, of all my family was the youngest. But at seven years old he had the oldest eyes of us all. He had the eyes of one who had looked death in the eye and was not afraid. I have only ever seen that look in the eyes of seasoned veterans and to see that in a child made me sad.

It also reminded me of why I was training to fight. Only when the whole of the world is united in peace and prosperity will children not need to worry about whether or not there will be food tomorrow. Only then would a child be able to sleep in peace knowing that their home will still be there when they woke. Disease would not needlessly slaughter thousands and every child would have the same chance at success as any young nobleman.

Three days after my seventeenth birthday we were given our first assignment. We were to take out an Earth Kingdom baron who was funding a rebellion in the colonies. We suited up and headed out. Wei took front position and the rest of us filtered in on the sides. Five arrows simultaneously pierced his body armor and entered his heart. He was dead within seconds and we were quickly retreating back to our ship and setting off for home.

We have had many more assignments since then, from corrupt Fire Navy officials to Water Tribe peasants stirring up trouble deep in the heart of Ba Sing Se. With each target we grew closer, new bonds were formed and within a year we had one of the closest knit units any army has ever seen. We trained new squads of archers, teaching them the same things we taught each other but never has any other unit achieved what we did. We are more than just a squad.

I'll never forget that first hit. It was the first life I took and the first step toward civilization for all. In my journey, in my own private war, a great battle was won that day. My brothers, noble and valiant as they are, understood the meaning of that first target and the way in which we carried out our plan. That was the day we truly became one family. We are united in this war we fight and we will be victorious.

___I am Yu-Yan._

* * *

**A****/N: Well dearies, my muse is officially up and running. I'm thinking I'm going to do a chapter for each of my characters and see where things go from there. Thank-you all for the wonderful reviews. They keep me motivated to keep posting without them this story never would have seen the light of day.**___**  
**_


	3. Kin & Country

We are Xing-Xing & Ye.

* * *

We were born in an un-named village at the edge of the colonies. We were raised as part of a troupe of performers. We were the middle of six children in our family; our parents ran the troupe. Our family traveled from the heart of the Fire Nation to the uttermost borders of the colonies. We performed for dignitaries, in palaces, and also at street fairs and carnivals when times were hard.

At the age of four we performed together in front of Fire Lord Azulon. We would shoot arrows into four different wooden pillars at a pace so rapid it was like a blur. Our older twin sisters would then climb, jump, and fly from pillar to pillar while our parents shot jets of flame mere inches behind them. We would then put our bows on our backs and leap over, under and around the flames while our younger brother and sister sat entranced in the arms of our fellow performers. It was wonderful fun. We were happy, we were free, and we were proud to be in so auspicious a place. The royal family was pleased, especially the royal children of Prince Ozai. We wanted to play with them but our mother explained that royal children do not play with performers, no matter how close in age they were.

Since before we can remember we've all loved fire, both our sisters and us. We used to beg mother to make us a flame to play with but none of us four inherited our parents' bending. The girls could practically fly and we are the perfect archers but not one of us can make flame. It used to make us sad but not for long. For when our younger siblings were only two-and-a-half we discovered that they both had the gift of fire bending. As long as one unit of our clan had it we didn't begrudge them their gift, just as they didn't begrudge us ours.

Father used to talk about the Fire Nation, every night before we went to sleep he would make us each a small flame to hold on a candle and tell us about our beautiful nation. He told us about the beautiful prairies on the northern islands and the boiling hot volcanoes to the south. He told us stories of different people he had met in different villages around the world, when the political situation was not so hostile as it is now, from the Northern Water Tribe, to the Earth King's Palace, but the ones both we all enjoyed most were the ones of the Fire Nation. We didn't care for conquest, especially not the girls, but we loved tales of fire and the amazing things people have learned to do with it.

Before every meal and before every show, we would recite the Fire Nation Oath. It was a lovely thing; our mother turned it into a song for us. We used to sing it to our little siblings as they drifted off to sleep. Then, in turn, our older sisters would sing it to us. We always liked to believe that our parents sang it to our sisters as well but we don't know because we were sleeping.

* * *

We are one.

* * *

We first met Shinu after a performance in the house of our esteemed friend Admiral Park. Déshèng and Katsue, our youngest siblings, were of an age to perform with us and to this day we believe that the performance we gave that night showed the very best our family had to display. Shinu was impressed with our display not only of archery but also of agility and strength. He requested an audience with our parents that very night. We waited up for them as we always did whenever important dignitaries spoke with them, waiting anxiously for whatever news they would bring back to us. We each took up our customary seats around the fire in the center of our tent, telling stories to keep each other awake.

The sun went down over the horizon and the moon began to make its journey across the sky and still we waited. When the moon was high overhead Déshèng and Katsue fell asleep. We sang to them as they drifted off and then continued waiting. Sometime in the darkest part of the night, just before the dawn, our parents returned to our tent. Our mother was crying silently into our father's shoulder. They sat in the open spot before the fire and our sisters poured them tea and again we waited to hear whatever news they had. Our father opened his mouth as if to speak but closed it again before any sound had left it, seemingly collecting his thoughts.

Finally he spoke. He told us that Shinu had requested that we join his army contingent of elite archers. Our mother began to sob and our father continued on, silently comforting her. He said that they had explained to Shinu that we did not separate our family but he had protested that our Nation's need for us was greater than the bonds of family loyalty. The girls began to cry as well, quietly drawing closer to our mother we alone still sat on the other side of the fire. Our father continued saying that our mother had protested the taking of children into the army but Shinu had threatened that if they did not comply all of our family would face exile.

At that moment we understood what they now asked of us. Never in our lives had we been separated from our family for any great length of time, and now we faced the prospect of the rest of our lives alone. In that instant we knew why our sister's in their understanding and grief had moved away from us. We knew that our parents had left us the choice of saying no but we also knew that if we chose that path our entire family would be convicted of treason and exiled, perhaps executed. We understood that if that was our decision we would have the complete support of our family, just as we would have supported them if our roles had been reversed.

But we would not choose that path. "We will go." we told them. "We will go and fight for our Nation." That night our mother, our father, our three sisters, and our little brother sang us to sleep. We left with Shinu the next morning and arrived at our destination only two days later. We were given a set of bunks in a room with our new squad mates: Wei and Xi-Wang. That night we waited sitting on our bunks until the others were asleep, then we climbed into the lowest bunk and cried ourselves to sleep.

* * *

We will endure.

* * *

The next day we began training. It was a new experience for us to be training to do more than perform but it wasn't so big a difference that we didn't catch on quickly. Learning to make the bow into an extension of our own bodies was not something we had ever incorporated into a performance, it wasn't necessary. But we soon learned that in a combat situation it became a matter of life and death. Day after day Wei woke us up at the crack of dawn to move us through our drills. Again the moment the sun went down we were standing, marching, or even running with our longbows in our hands shooting arrow after arrow into targets stationed around the field outside the fortress.

On the day we had caught up to our squad mates in all that we had lacked before, we began to teach them how to run up pillars of stone and wood. We taught them the art of jumping quickly from place to place. It was a move that our father had once said came from studying the ancient and long dead techniques of the Air Nomads. One squad mate would shoot and the others would practice dodging the tip less blunted arrows. We borrowed from our sisters when we taught them to almost fly from rooftop to rooftop. The night we all completed every exercise perfectly we stayed up late sharing stories. We were proud to tell our tales of our nation, from the beauty of the capital to the magnificence of the Fire Navy itself. We learned of the advances made in science and literature by our great nation and were once again reminded the pride we have in our nation.

When Sheng arrived we proposed another change to our routine. Despite our prowess with the longbow the regular soldiers constantly mocked us for our youth and flighty techniques that were more than uncommon in fighters. Our father had a tattoo across his face; he used to say that it was the symbol of his pride in his nation. He once joked that where ever we went everyone knew that he was Fire Nation and proud of it and so would not dare to mock him. We suggested that everyone of our squad either tattoo or paint that symbol on our faces. It would be like the war paint of the Water Tribes. At first the others were skeptical but in time we came to the decision that it was worth it. Our father's tattoo became the symbol of our unit and the fear of every enemy of the Fire Nation. He will be proud when he hears of it, whether from our own lips when we have won this accursed war or from the lips of those who come to fear the sight of it.

Sheng presented a new difficulty for our new family. Of all of us he was both the youngest and the smallest, but as Xi-Wang said, he was also the oldest and most battle-hardened. At first we didn't know what to make of him. He was not a little brother but neither was he a big brother and never in a thousand years was he a part of us but he was still family. For four months we trained with him, ate with him, and shared a room with him but still we could not understand him. Until one night we woke in the middle of the night with him standing in front of our bunk staring at us with the terror of a lingering nightmare still in his eyes. We scooted closer to the wall and he climbed into our bunk with us. We all three lay there, unmoving, just breathing for hours, and then in the dark before dawn we sang him to sleep.

Exactly two years from the day we first arrived we completed our first mission. We don't remember what it was, only that it was one battle closer to the end of the war. We completed many more assignments and the years flowed on. Five years after our first assignment we put on a display of our talents for the Fire Lord himself and his daughter Princess Azula and her friends. We remembered the prince we had wanted to play with when we were young and asked about him to the Captain of the watch. Apparently he became a traitor and was exiled. We know to this day that that could have been us exiled, never to return to our beautiful country. We are grateful it was not. We learned to get on without our family until we found a new one but we believe with all that is in us in the Fire Nation. We will never find another nation as great as this and we are both sad and proud to be needed in its service.

We are Yu-Yan.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the wait, I was unsucessfully attempting to procure a betareader. Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews, they make me happy and guilt me into updating. =) As of now one more chapter is planned, possibly more depending on RL and my fickle muse. Thanks for reading.**


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